The Fat Lady's Song
I lift and heave my apples of ripe flesh
until I'm upright, then I roll,
hauling my mountain through the grey
pudding lands spotted with the thin,
their beaky faces ravening for food,
their mouths gated with wires of steel.
I dance my zig-zag bounce and shake
among their walking ghosts. I could
squash them like flies on a windscreen -
I drain oceans, mow down fields of grain,
swallow up the orchards and the vine.
I could show them how to drink the sky,
chew on the stars and moon,
spit grape and papaya, breathe out wine,
singing from my vast round heart,
red pebbles chuckling in my throat.
I walk where earth runs milk and honey,
bathe in rivers wet with silk; samba with the trees,
then sleep like a great seal humped
on my beach of yellow corn.
until I'm upright, then I roll,
hauling my mountain through the grey
pudding lands spotted with the thin,
their beaky faces ravening for food,
their mouths gated with wires of steel.
I dance my zig-zag bounce and shake
among their walking ghosts. I could
squash them like flies on a windscreen -
I drain oceans, mow down fields of grain,
swallow up the orchards and the vine.
I could show them how to drink the sky,
chew on the stars and moon,
spit grape and papaya, breathe out wine,
singing from my vast round heart,
red pebbles chuckling in my throat.
I walk where earth runs milk and honey,
bathe in rivers wet with silk; samba with the trees,
then sleep like a great seal humped
on my beach of yellow corn.
Page(s) 59
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